Chapter 82 Chapter Notes

Alice woke up to save Bella's life. She's now protecting her. From Edward.

This chapter was difficult for me to write. Please pull up the song title on YouTube and listen to it. It encapsulates Edward's feelings about what he'd done perfectly.

The chapter title belongs to Placebo

Chapter 82 Running Up That Hill Tuesday, December 26th

Alice grits her teeth against the blood. I know she's desperate to feed. When I reach for Bella, she turns away. "No, I've got her. Go put some blankets down on the floor in the living room and I'll carry her in."

Once inside, I grab a spare quilt out of the linen closet and throw it on the floor. Alice places Bella down carefully. "She'll be okay, I think. You'd better call Carlisle." Alice is wide-eyed but determined. She won't let me near Bella until the venom begins to change her blood, which takes anywhere from ten minutes up to half an hour. After that, it's undrinkable.

Carlisle answers his phone on the second ring. "Hello, Edward. I'm almost home. Is there a—"

"Bella fell down the stairs," I yell. "I was here alone with her and had to change her."

"I just turned onto the highway. Be there in a few." The line goes dead. Alice stands, mute and trembling. She stares down at the girl who is her best friend, but she doesn't see Bella. She sees another woman whose fair hair blew in the icy breeze as they walked together along a rocky shore. She sees Bree.

When she begins to tremble, I gesture to the door. "Go. Bella will be okay."

"No. Her blood hasn't changed yet. I'll wait for Carlisle. You…you go sit outside. I'm not strong enough to overpower you if you go mad again." She looks at me with a frown and says, "What day is it? And how did we end up back here?"

"Day after Christmas. Long story, but we're un-banished." She points a wavering finger to the door and I shake my head in disgust at myself. I can't blame her. I nearly killed the most important single thing in my life.

"Where is everybody?" she says, stopping my progress to the patio. "I called Jasper, but his phone went to voicemail." She pauses. "And what happened in Alaska, after Bree died?" Her voice is small.

With my hand on the doorknob, I tell her the whereabouts of the family and what I know of the events in Alaska. "Jenks paid out a huge sum to the husband. He had her body cremated. If there's been any contact between him and the family, I'm not aware of it."

Alice fingers the hem of Bella's orange tunic. "When did Bella open this gift? It was in a gift bag in my closet."

I hold my head in one, trembling hand. "Just a few minutes ago. I asked her to put the books that you lent me in your closet. She must have seen it and put it on."

Alice nods absently and I yell, "You don't understand! Charlie had a dream where Bella is lying in a pool of blood, wearing a long shirt with big white buttons! That shirt, Alice!"

"Oh my god," she wails. "When did he have these dreams?"

I hold out my hands. "It's not your fault. You were in the trance, and anyway, he just told us about them. But it's the same shirt in his dream, I'll bet."

"Where were you, Edward? On the reservation? I couldn't see you anywhere." Her usually taut muscles sag from lack of sustenance. She can think of nothing but blood.

"I wasn't. I woke up on a motel bed in Libby, Montana. I was asleep, or whatever, for over five weeks."

She blinks. "You were also…asleep? For five weeks?"

"Yeah. Carlisle called around, and Tanya told him they had a visitor in Alaska, a vegetarian who suffered from the same thing. She wondered if it was a reaction to stress by Immortals who don't have the protection of human blood."

Her lips part in surprise. "I was alone," I say, "but someone has been with you every minute. We've all taken turns. Charlie even came over to talk to you for a while." She looks up at me with a pained expression and tries Jasper again. I hear his voicemail greeting, and she snaps her phone shut in agitation.

She looks at me with a hopeful expression. "Has he been okay?" Her voice is small, as if she's expecting an answer that she's not ready for.

"He's okay. He's been missing you, but he hasn't lost control or anything like that." I think about how confused I felt when I woke, how afraid I was of my weakness and my mental fog. "Listen, you'll be okay once you feed. It'll take hours for the blood to integrate, but once you're in the forest, run. That helped me. You'll need to feed again soon, but you'll start to feel better right away."

Before I can tell her about the house or that Bella and I are married, we hear Carlisle's car tear down the last few yards of the lane. It jerks to a stop and he bolts up the stairs and into the house.

When he sees Bella, jerking and crying on the quilt, and then up at his daughter, he smiles and says, "Alice. Hello! Go feed. Go now." She embraces him briefly and runs out the door. I hear her land on the mossy ground across the river, wondering when I'll see her again. And what she'll think of me after what I did.

Carlisle thinks, first things first. After a quick examination of Bella's head and extremities, he pronounces her in the full throes of the transformation. He studies the full-mouth print visible on her neck, from below her ear to the middle of her throat. Not the kind of bite you give to change someone. More like the kind you give when you're desperate to drink every last ounce of their blood.

Bella's body jerks and twists. Without another word, he leans down and punctures her wrists, calves, abdomen, arms and the other side of her neck. The entire time, she rolls around, shrieking in agony.

I try to sit by Bella but see myself in Carlisle's mind. I am blood, head to toe. Bella's blood. His gaze lingers on my hands and my mouth. God, my face is caked with blood, some not quite dried. Still sticky. And I grit my teeth, because I really want to lick it all off.

Then, in his mind I see the rushing river, just down the cleared expanse from the house. Our eyes meet, and in seconds, I've fetched clean clothes, and then I'm there, letting the cold water sluice over my body, washing Bella's blood away. I dunk down and ruffle my hands through my hair and try to come to terms with what I just did.

I bit Bella. I nearly killed her. How could I have let this happen? Back at the house, only a couple of minutes have passed. Carlisle crouches beside his patient and eyes me with consternation. "Tell me what led up to this." He places a cold hand on Bella's twitching arm.

I falter for a moment. "We were in my room, packing up. She went down for a sandwich, and when I heard the plate hit the deck, I ran down to find her lying at the foot of the porch stairs. She must have hit her head on the paving bricks." We step outside for a few moments. The pool of blood hasn't fully coagulated. I'm ashamed that I'm still pulled toward it.

Carlisle observes the puddle dispassionately. We go back inside the house and he examines Bella's wound more thoroughly. "I'm surprised she didn't die at the moment of impact," he says seriously. "See here, where the skull is cracked?" I hold my breath and peer in, seeing a gouge out of her skull. It's still leaking blood, but the venom is closing it as we speak.

"At the very least, she would have suffered a massive concussion, possibly brain damage, certainly a subdural hematoma." He looks at me with a meaningful expression. "When faced with that kind of damage, I can't imagine you wouldn't have changed her right away, seeing as how you had planned to do it in a few months anyway. So the outcome is the same, Edward."

I cradle Bella's head in my lap. When I gently probe the area with my fingers, I feel that it has now closed, and is no longer bleeding. "But I nearly killed her, Carlisle," I say, aghast. "The last few days, the venom has been totally under control. She…we engaged in…ah, oh, what the hell. She sucked me off, Carlisle. Twice. And the venom didn't pool at all. I thought that maybe my body was finally acclimating to her presence."

He gestures for me to continue. "So I stopped blocking her," I say. "Not all the way," I add quickly, after seeing his startled expression. "Just a little bit. Then when I came down and saw her bleeding and unconscious, thinking she was about to die, I bit her neck, and was able to produce the venom necessary for that task. I didn't take any blood. But she woke up screaming. And then she began to struggle."

Carlisle grimaces. I nod my head. "Yeah. I mean, she hit me and kicked me and gyrated around in my arms. She flailed against me, and I fell into the frenzy and couldn't remember what I was supposed to be doing. I didn't remember who she was. And then Alice was there, yelling in my ear, pulling my hair, and I dropped her."

"Did Alice say anything about her trance?"

"Wasn't time. Do you think you should go look for her?"

"Edward, I'd never find her." Carlisle checks his watch. "I have a gallbladder in a few minutes, and then I'm due on the reservation." He pats my shoulder. "Call me if there's a change, but I think Bella is well on her way."

Carlisle gets back into his car and speeds away, thinking only about Bella's and my future together. He's not concerned about what happened. What almost happened. It doesn't matter anymore. In three days, more or less, Bella will wake up and will never need to be protected from anything.

Ever again.

I try Jasper's phone, and he finally picks up. "Hey, Edward. We just got back on the road. There's no signal up in those mountains." I tell him that Alice woke up, that she'd called and then left to hunt. He swears colorfully.

He sounds both ecstatic and troubled, then sighs dramatically. "We'll be there in a couple of hours. I'm going to try her, but just in case I can't reach her, call if she shows up, okay?"

Before he snaps his phone shut, I hear the Raptor's engine rev, and imagine the gas pedal pressed to the floor. I lift Bella's twitching, tortured body into my arms and cradle her as if she were a baby. I sob tearlessly, feeling the emotion pour out of me as I imagine what the venom is doing to her living flesh. It is stealing her humanity, her soul, for all time. How could I have let this happen? Would I have felt thus in a few months, when we had actually planned this?

Already, some of her human scent has dissipated, replaced by a sharp, clear perfume. I've never felt worse, not in my entire existence, than I do right this minute, with the sure knowledge that I would have killed Bella if Alice hadn't intervened.

Her limbs jerk and there's a look of abject misery on her face. I did this. Because of me, she's lying here in agony, instead of hanging out with friends. If it wasn't for me, the worst thing she would have to face is her math course, but calculus, while deadly looking, doesn't actually kill you. It only makes you wish you were dead.

I don't move from Bella's side except to fetch her some of the new clothes that had been stowed in my closet. I tie up her blood-stained clothing in a plastic bag and place it on the front porch. I'll deal with it later. I bring a pan of warm water and a soft cloth to wash her with, wishing that the water could soothe her skin, but knowing it can't possibly make any difference.

Jasper calls to tell me that the highway is closed down due to an accident. "I'm leaving the Raptor with Emmett and Rosalie and running home," he says. "I'm going through the forest to see if I can find Alice."

"I can't hear her, so she can't be within a few miles of the house. Try farther up," I suggest.

The hours drag on and I read to Bella, sing her songs and play her some music. I tell her about the night that Alice revealed to me I had fallen in love with her, and how hopeless I felt until I realized that she loved me as well.

It rains, washing the last of Bella's blood away. The sound of the drops pelting against the windows reminds me of all the nights I'd sat in her room, camped out by her open window, getting soaked, but not feeling safe enough to be enclosed with her.

My phone rings and it's Jasper.

"Hey—"

Before I can say his name, he blurts, "I caught her scent, but can't find her!"

I don't know how to calm him. If it were Bella, I'd be frantic as well. "Rose and Emmett aren't back yet, but when they return, I'll send them out to look unless I hear from you." He agrees and disconnects.

It's quiet in the house, aside from Bella's occasional shrieks and constant tears. During the transformation, we're not totally conscious. We can't speak or move about on our own, but we can occasionally absorb what's going on around us. I can remember hearing Carlisle's voice at times, and the others conveyed a similar experience. But most of the seventy-two hours is taken up with an immersion into a searing pit.

Bella had asked me about the process of the transformation, but I had equivocated. I thought we'd have months to discuss the particulars. Once the venom enters the bloodstream, the blood is the first thing to be changed, and begins to slowly burn through human flesh as the arteries carry it around the body.

The venom is an incredibly corrosive substance. Venom-laced saliva will burn any item it touches. I had to practice holding back the venom when I kissed Bella, so could never allow her tongue in my mouth. My teeth always swam in venom. Once inside the body, it feels like extreme heat. It's a burning that one would associate with standing in a lake of fire, or being doused with acid.

And the further into the process, the worse it gets. Only hotter, never cooler, until it's finally over.

I hold my bride, imagining the venom searing its way to her heart. And that is the worst pain of all, when the heart is finally eaten away, and only stone remains. No more soft flesh, no more dusky blush, no more dreams.

No more life.

No more humanity.

After another hour, I hear the Raptor pull up in front of the house. Rosalie and Emmett both bound up the stairs and stop dead when they see Bella, cradled in my arms, clearly in the midst of her flaming conversion.

"What the hell happened here today?" Emmett demands. "Jasper got a call saying Alice had woken up, then ran off, but that was all!"

I tell them exactly what occurred. "Alice appeared behind me and saved Bella's life. I was too far gone to remember what I was supposed to be doing." My voice is grim, but not as grim as my mood when I think of how close I came to my worst fear: Bella, DRT.

Emmett leans down and peers into my eyes, which I'm sure have taken on an eerie shade of dark orange, if not outright fluorescent red. He doesn't comment.

I sigh. "Listen, Jasper is out there, still looking for Alice. I told him you'd help him when you got home." Emmett and Rosalie glance at each other and leave immediately. In just a few seconds, I can no longer hear their thoughts, and I'm left with Bella, who this time yesterday was probably contemplating the sex we'd just enjoyed, and was planning more.

A lot more.

C'mon, baby, c'mon darling,
Let me steal this moment from you now.
C'mon, angel, c'mon, c'mon, darling,
Let's exchange the experience,

And if I only could,
I'd make a deal with God,
And I'd get him to swap our places,
Be running up that road,
Be running up that hill,
With no problems.